Time for an Independent Katrina Commission

We can't wait any longer for the truth.

It’s time for an independent commission to investigate and report to the nation on the emergency, relief, and recovery effort before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. The congressional effort is going nowhere and a partisan report will only serve to mask the true nature of the problems.

In the aftermath of the disaster, President Bush announced that he would be checking up on the effort’s shortcomings, through his homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend. At about the same time, 54 Republican Senators blocked a move to create an independent commission, citing the internal Administration investigation and more congressional oversight to come.

We haven’t seen a report from Townsend yet and no one’s looking forward to a complete and fearless look from someone who reports to the man with the most to lose from such an investigation. Now, the Republican-led congressional investigation has met with executive privilege claims from the White House, after months of plain old stalling.

This doesn’t seem to bother the Chairwoman, Senator Susan Collins, R-ME. Despite saying in November that unless failures were investigated that New Orleans would remain “a city in jeopardy,” she’s now backpedaling. Collins explained that Homeland Security has been "forthcoming, perhaps a little slow," but she understood that it was because "they have a lot to do." Collins says this despite the refusal of former FEMA Director Michael Brown to cooperate and despite the lack of White House documents.

The refusal of the White House to turn over e-mails and documents detailing communications between FEMA and White House staff is another ominous development for anyone interested in finding out what really happened. Claims of executive privilege usually hinge on national security, not a blanket denial of information to the Congress in the wake of a natural disaster.

This stonewalling and the committee’ majority’s acceptance of a closed-door briefing by Ken Rapuano, Bush’s deputy domestic security adviser, as a substitute for primary sources and documents telegraphs a lack of congressional will to find the truth. The Republican leadership is bowing to the White House in accepting “the fog of war” as an excuse for a lack of answers.

Some of the answers that aren’t forthcoming include finding out what happened to the detailed predictions of a disaster quite like the one that unfolded in the days after it was delivered to the White House situation room. The White House received a 41-page document from emergency management officials about five hours before Katrina made landfall in Louisiana.

The Hartford Courant reported this week that, "The memo warned in specific terms what could happen, saying a major hurricane "will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching, leaving the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks or months." "

The only way the people of the United States are going to get answers is for the process to be taken away from the political leadership that is behind the stonewalling. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-NY, is attempting to force a debate on creating an independent commission, through a maneuver called a congressional discharge petition. A discharge petition, if signed by half of the Congress, forces a debate, followed by an up-or-down vote. Congresspeople can be urged by their constituents to sign on or explain during the 2006 campaign why they won’t.

Right now, the only people hearing details from the inside of the FEMA hurricane are friendly paying audiences who’ve hired former Director Michael Brown, at $375 a head (really, people actually paid for this entertainment). Wouldn’t you rather hear him testify before a commission with subpoena power?